Anima: a festival of contemporary animation by women

Valley animation fans: come see an amazing showcase of recent work by female animators!

7-9pm
Sunday December 12th
Main Lecture Hall, Franklin Patterson Hall
Hampshire College
FREE
parental note: this is not an all ages program

Click here for the facebook event page and tell us you're coming!

The fall 2010 Women in Animation class at Hampshire College has assembled an outstanding program of international and award-winning short films made by women that feature a wide variety of media, techniques, and subject matter. The work is inspiring and fresh, much of it coming from emerging artists who are sure to leave their marks on the animation world.

Official Selection (alphabetical order)
Astronomer's Sun, The (Cope, 2010, UK)
Benigni (Vuorinen, Partanen, Ottelin, 2009, Finland)
Chrigi (Kofmel, 2009, Switzerland)
El Doctor (Pitt, 2006, USA)
Forest (Schulnik, 2009, USA)
Lebensader (Steffen, 2009, Germany)
Miramare (Müller, 2009, Switzerland)
Notebook (Lohbeck, 2008, Netherlands)
Soft Plants (de Swaef, 2009, Belgium)
Tongueling, The (Vuorinen, 2010, Finland)
Triumph of the Wild 2 (Colburn, 2009, Netherlands/USA)
Windows, Masks & Doors (Orenstein, 2007, USA)

festival program

One Frame at a Time wrapup

The One Frame at a Time animation event at Hampshire went great last weekend. I thank our filmmakers for exposing us all to some outstanding work (including older films by Raoul Servais and Georges Schwizgebel -- both embedded below), and for sharing their production methods with those who attended the master class.

The nice thing about a flexible, participant-curated show is that we could squeeze in some other treats, like Bill Plympton's new short "The Cow Who Wanted to be a Hamburger" (clip below) and a 16mm print of a Mr. Magoo "Fuddy Duddy Buddy" hand-delivered to the screening by Emily Hubley.

I hadn't yet seen Bill Plympton's new short even though it has been collecting awards at many festivals lately. It was a lot of fun, and there was a great resonance with my interests of late since I've been researching food and agriculture for another project. I also smiled at the parallels between the young cow and the young protagonist of my short Catch from 2005 - both have at least some portion of their lives shaped by billboards!

Thanks to all who attended and participated. With luck we'll be able to repeat this process next year and bring a new slate of animation work to viewers in the Valley.

A bundle of Tower 37 news today, including a wrap-up from the Artivist Fest in LA by our own producer Daniel. I'm trying not to take it personally, but when I go to festivals I'm lucky to get a Q&A. Daniel gets trophies handed to him, press photos, he gets invited up on stage, you name it. What gives?

Before we hear from Daniel, Bill and Signe are running an encore presentation of the Woodstock Animated Shorts block on January 13th at 92YTribeca, which you Bit Films historians might recognize as the very same place where Tower 37 first screened in NYC almost a year earlier as a part of Hampshire College's Alumni Reel. I really enjoyed the Woodstock program and I strongly encourage anyone in the NY area to check it out in January.

We also heard that the Tiburon International Film Festival is going to be showing Tower 37 in March 2010. This selection is exciting for two reasons: it's my first repeat festival (they showed Catch in 2007), and it's also going to compete with Moondance in the category of "festival with the most of my family members in attendance."

Speaking of Catch, I posted the original animatic for Catch the other day. Boy I had some rough sketches in there, but they served their purpose and I hope people find it helpful to compare the film-as-planned with the film-as-delivered.

And now I give the web over to Daniel, who writes:

I attended both our screening last Thursday and the awards ceremony on Saturday night. I've been in LA for a year and a half but this was my first time at the Egyptian Theater. The festival did an excellent job turning the courtyard in front of the theater into a festival space where audience members and filmmakers could all mingle. They had live music and swag everywhere. Very cool.

We played in the Spielberg theater, the smaller of the two screens, but sill a relatively nice theater. I'd say the theater was probably about 70% full...which I think was quite a feat considering it was 7pm on a Thursday night. One of the exec directors of the festival got up and introduced all the films that would be playing (each one had an environmental theme). He also pointed out that I was in attendance and there would be a Q&A following the films, it was at this point that I discovered I was the only person there representing a film.

The screening went really well. Laughs at the size reveal and the dud bomb, "awwwws" at the first reveal of Leed after the helmet pops off and during u5_03 as Leed swims around the pitcher, and gasps of uncertainty when Operator slips and almost hits Leed and as the tower comes apart. It felt like we got the longest and loudest applause of the evening. My only complaint is a technical one. The contrast appeared to be turned up a little too high on the projector, because the blacks were really intense and in some of the shots inside the control room we lost some of the detail in the dark. [editor's note: argh!]

Of the five films, we were the only narrative, the rest were docs. In my opinion, the most interesting (and longest) was Seeds of Change: The ECO Story, about a project to attempt the clean Yangtze River by teaching the poor farmers who work along its banks to use crops that are better for soil retention and thus the earth doesn't run off into the river (there was a lot more to it, but that was the basic idea). This is the second time that I have seen us play alongside a doc and I have to say, I really like the pairing of hard fact and imaginative fantasy. [editor's note: the first time was the Newport Beach Film Festival, which Daniel also wrote about, and there was also the Moondance pairing in Boulder that I attended]

The final film ended and the lights came up, but the guy who had introduced all the films didn't come back in. The audience started to get confused and some people started to get up to leave, so I got up (after being coaxed a bit by the people who came with me, including Tower 37 animator Harry) and ran down to the front of the theater and launched into my own Q&A. We received numerous positive and glowing comments about how affective the film was. I talked about your original impetus for the film, discussed how it evolved during production, and went on to explain how it was produced entirely in an academic environment. After the Q&A ended I talked with the exec director (who eventually came back in, but I was already mid-Q&A). He had been unaware of the academic nature of the project and we discussed how Artivist is a really good fit for our film that seems to stump programmers a lot. He commented how we were one of the few narratives that really fit the fest. On the way out of the theater one of the photographers snapped our photo:

I came back Saturday for the awards ceremony. Definitely one of the most "Hollywood" events I have been to. After the red carpet walk, we headed into the theater where we had reserved seats set aside for us in the front along with a ton of celebrities. We were seated right behind Olivia Wilde from House and The OC who was receiving an award for her humanitarian work. Hank Azaria was also there and also received an award for his humanitarian efforts. At the end of the ceremony, they invited all the attending filmmakers to come up to the stage. The fest uploaded a video of this to youtube.

Overall a pretty positive festival experience!

3 in NYC wrapup

The streets of NYC were crawling with Tower 37 fans these last weeks, that is, if you count me and a small crew huddling down in the rain on our walk to the amazing subterranean restaurant Sakagura on 43rd Street. This was after the outstanding BeFilm New Fall Animation screening, hosted by Signe Baumane, which I mentioned in an earlier post.

Since then, Tower 37 was a part of the Imagine Science Fest, HDFest in NYC, the Austin Film Festival, and the 15 Short Film Festival. I have heard only a bit about some of these fests, and nothing at all about the others! So this is kind of a small review, and in fact, most of it will come from the emails I received from Tower 37 crew member Jasper who was able to attend the two NYC events I couldn't be at.

His review of the Imagine Science screening:

i just got back from the imagine science film festival screening in brooklyn, and i'm happy to report it went really well. the "fantasy, imagination, and experimental" theme made for a very interesting program...a nice mix of about 1/3rd live-action, narrative films, 1/3rd animated shorts, and 1/3rd experimental, mixed-medium films. tower 37 screened third to last, and was very well recieved. galapagos, the art space where the screening was held, has a very casual table and booth seating arrangement, so there was some noticeable chatting and clinking drinks from the bar heard throughout the evening...but amazingly, as soon as tower 37 began rolling, the crowd got noticeably quiet. it was a really exciting effect to see and hear the entire room silent with tension during the film's most suspenseful and emotional scenes. when the credits rolled there was a tremendously positive round of applause. after the screening, there was an informal q&a, which i (excitedly, albeit nervously) took part in. the director and lead actor of the film "the strange rebirth of andre weil" were the only other filmmakers who took part. i got a chance to give a quick rundown of the history and details of the production, squeezed in some mentions of some past and upcoming festival appearances, and then they opened it up to the audience for questions. after a brief (awkward) pause, when it became clear no one might ask a question, a stranger in the front row instead shouted out "we loved it!" which led to another larger round of applause. alexis and kate (artistic director and programming director, respectively), the two organizers in charge, spoke really highly of our film and sent their regards to you. i thanked them multiple times, and congratulated them on a very interesting program and festival. i had a few strangers congratulate our film as i made my way out of the venue. all in all a very good night...sorry you couldn't have seen it, but i'm glad to have the chance to represent the film.

I'm sad to say that Jasper's experience at HDFest was less positive. I'll paraphrase: the film didn't screen until one of the people there asked about it during the Q&A. The moderator claimed a "technical issue" (the details of which have yet to be explained to me) but then said it would screen, and it did, but only after many people left. As a consolation, they said they'd program it in the next night's animation show. I haven't heard from anyone how that went, or if it went at all.

Has anyone seen the film in Austin, or at the 15 Short Film Fest? Sorry to blog questions to the void but I'm hoping (like the Mosaic project in FlashForward - yay JB and DG) that someone will stumble onto this and fill me in about the things I know very little about.

3700 screens?

I confess that I have a big distaste for absurdly huge opening weekends. Where the Wild Things Are, on 3700+ screens? As excited as I might be (or might have been) about seeing the film, I am certainly going to wait at least a week to let the hubris of that move wash away a little. It's like the guy showing up at the party in a limo. Maybe he's an okay guy, but showing up in a limo is just trying to get attention.

If the demand were somehow there for 3700 screens, then it would make more sense. But does it feel to anyone else like a desperate attempt to cash in early? Why not buy up all the screens and ensure that whoever sees a movie this weekend sees your movie?

In contrast, let me draw your attention to The Adventures of Power. A feature by an old high school friend being released on a super small scale. One week in NYC, one week in LA, one week in Austin, etc. It looks to me like the film is going to build up some momentum and a demand greater than the small screenings can accommodate, then burst on the seen in large enough release to meet the demand. The small shows are parties, events, befitting their relative rarity - not cattle calls like the dozens of screenings of Wild Things this weekend at the local multiplex. Seeing Power is a special event. Go find a screening near you.

On the even smaller release front, Tower 37 was part of a great show on Thursday in New York hosted by Signe Baumane and sponsored by BeFilm. Many of the films were familiar from Woodstock and other venues, but on the new front, I truly enjoyed the Argentinian short El Empleo. There are three other screenings in the coming week, one in North Carolina and two more in NYC. Check them out!

a dash of non-fiction animation

Here are two films that hit my inbox recently which I enjoyed and which share a familiar stylistic approach (I am reminded of Creature Comforts). From what I can determine, rather different techniques were used in actual production. Enjoy!

The Lost Tribes of New York City
Product Placement

the trailer for 9

Relatively recently, the trailer for Shane Acker's 9 went live. I just love the story behind this film being made, at least the little bits I've gleaned from the web. A young director rides a short through the festival circuit, gains a fair amount of notoriety, and catches the attention of Tim Burton. Without any perceptible delay, they've got a feature going! There's a nice interview here though it's a little old.

Here's hoping it will be as exciting as it looks. And if so, that will be marketed better than Delgo. Anyone know what it will be rated?

diversions

I've been having a lot of fun watching the Big River Show lately. It's Bill Bowles's latest adventure, this time a trek down the Mississippi river in an old pontoon boat. Check it out and enjoy.

I am such a fan of fresh media like this.